Honored educator: Restore PE posts

The Oak Ridge Board of Education has honored nationally recognized physical education pioneer Shirley Holt-Hale for her work by naming Linden Elementary School’s gym after her. It’s an honor that her former principal said is “not enough for Shirley.”

The Oak Ridge Board of Education has honored nationally recognized physical education pioneer Shirley Holt-Hale for her work by naming Linden Elementary School’s gym after her. It’s an honor that her former principal said is “not enough for Shirley.”

That’s a statement Holt-Hale might agree with because, although thankful for the recognition, the retired Oak Ridge teacher said she’d most like the Board to restore P.E. teaching positions at three of the city’s elementary schools.

But she said more than those loves, she loves children and firmly believes that each child has the right to learn and possess skills to keep themselves healthy.

Holt-Hale retired from Oak Ridge schools two years ago after teaching P.E. for more than 38 years. During that time, she wrote books advocating ways to get children moving in innovative ways rather than the structured environments of gym classes long past.

Her honors are many.

She taught a P.E. class at the White House under the administration of President George H.W. Bush. She was named National Physical Education Teacher of the Year. She was the only elementary school educator named to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education’s Hall of Fame, and a past president of the group.

Linden Principal Roger Ward told the School Board at its Monday night meeting that when he joined the school system eight years ago and saw that Holt-Hale was on his staff — “I nearly fell out of my chair.”

Her book, “Children Moving: A Reflective Approach to Teaching Physical Education,” had been used as a textbook while he was in college.

Calling her an “amazing educator,” Ward said her ways of getting all children to move, even those children who many thought couldn’t do much physical exercise, was exemplary.

“She did it right, I thought,” the Linden principal said.

Amid applause in the School Administration Building’s boardroom, the retired educator took the podium and joked about how she thought people were only called before the School Board when they were going to be fired and only had something named after them when they died.

She thanked them for the honor, but alluded to the fact that the Board members knew what action she’d like them to take.

Questioned by The Oak Ridger after the meeting, she briefly discussed the matter and then on Tuesday emailed her response:

“Oak Ridge has a history of providing programs of physical education for children, 30 years of history to be exact” Holt-Hale wrote.

Page 2 of 2 - “Last year in a vote of School Board, elementary physical education programs at the three larger elementary schools were cut from 1.5 to 1.0 teachers per school (Linden, Willow Brook and Woodland), thus a reduction of 33 percent of the program for children.

“Just this past week, the American Medical Association declared obesity a disease in the United States — with Tennessee third in the nation in obesity,” she said. “It is in the gymnasiums of elementary schools that children develop the skills for active participation in physical activity; it is in the early years of elementary school physical education that positive attitudes toward activity are developed.

“Now is not the time to be decreasing physical education programs for children.”

Holt-Hale said Glenwood Elementary School only had one P.E. teacher position because it had fewer students than the other three elementary schools.

At Monday night’s meeting, both Ward and School Board Chairman Keys Fillauer, a former educator, said they thought Holt-Hale considered her biggest honor to be the fact that she taught P.E. to more than 4,000 children over her 38-plus years of education.

Among those she taught were Board member Angi Agle and Agle’s children. Agle praised her former teacher for making P.E. fun.

Board member Jenny Richter said she liked the fact that whenever the Board visited Linden, Holt-Hale had the kids up moving … and there were no kids on the sidelines.